Tuesday, June 14, 2016

In a Museum!

A couple of months ago, on my Quotidian blog, I posted Sam's favorite paintings from the Guggenheim, along with a throwback reference to one of our favorite childhood movies Don't Eat the Pictures. I turned again to this Sesame Street favorite, about an overnight visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on my previous Fortnighlty blog, "Light as a Feather." One of the subplots for Big Bird concerns finding an answer to the all - important question: "Where does today meet yesterday?"

Can you guess the answer? "In a museum!"

Last summer (August 2015), Gerry and I visited several museums in Lincoln, England. We were lucky enough to be there for the octocentenary of the Magna Carta (1215 - 2015). Of all the awe - inspiring documents and artifacts that we surveyed as part of this town - wide octocentennial celebration of today meeting yesterday, what made the most lasting impression on me was an ancient jar of ancient pennies on display in The Collection Museum.

I couldn't help thinking of the ancient family (probably Roman) and all of the household items they might have valued, even treasured: an ornamental vase or wall hanging? a headdress or some jewelry? the best tableware or even the second - best. Of all these items, could they have ever guessed that what would survive would be the unused pennies, the most humble currency? Of all their arts and crafts and labor, is this what they would have chosen for us to remember them by, 800 years hence?

Certainly of all the things in my home that I consider beautiful or useful (see previous post), it is not the souvenir jar of nearly worthless pennies that I would send as emissary to the future. Yet, as it turns out, that's where yesterday met today, and where today might meet tomorrow.

The riddle of Don't Eat the Pictures -- "Where does today meet yesterday?" -- can also be found in the following two poems. Underlying their sophistication and elegance is the same conundrum. In "Museum," Wislawa Szymborska observes that "Since eternity was out of stock, / ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead": plates, weddings rings, fans, swords, lutes, hairpins, crowns, gloves, shoes, dresses. Ten thousand artifacts! Some quite impressive, others merely as silly as a jar of pennies. Her closing image of the determined dress is particularly timely and of interest, since I've recently learned that clothing in any way unusual -- not only vintage styles, but also novelty fashions and passing fads -- may be donated to the Purdue Theatre Department. Such garments might be used onstage or studied in the classroom -- where today meets yesterday.

The second poem, "In the Museum of Lost Objects," is Lindenberg's tribute to "the magnitude / of absence," all the long - lost relics, jewels, and documents that we shall never lay eyes upon. For every thing that we can see, there is so much more that we never can. For every heirloom or rustic jug retained, how many more disappeared in the landslide? How many were crushed in the landfill and have now disintegrated beyond all existence? As with cemeteries, for each loved one commemorated, there are millions more whose bones and names we shall never know. The Terracotta Ghost Army remains 8000 strong, but where are the citizens of the realm? "Gone to feed the roses" -- that's where. Their lives too would fill huge vacant fields, huge vacant rooms -- but we have "ten thousand aging things . . . instead."

Into the museums they go, so that today may encounter yesterday: bones and paintings, helmets and spears, classic books and curios, wonders of the world, unfinished manuscripts. Sensing how elusive eternity can be, we save what we can. As T.S. Eliot (and later Joan Didion) once said: "These fragments I have shored against my ruins."

WELCOME NEW READERS!

COINCIDENCES ARE ALWAYS THERE FOR THE TAKING. CONNECTIONS ARE ALWAYS THERE FOR THE MAKING.

WHAT A STRANGE WORLD THIS WOULD BE IF THERE WERE NO COINCIDENCES!

ISN'T A DAY WITHOUT A COINCIDENCE ACTUALLY WAY MORE UNUSUAL THAN A DAY FULL OF COINCIDENCES?

If you are a newcomer to this blog, all you really need to know is that I will post a new entry every two weeks, thus "fortnightly," i.e., every fourteen days -- on the 14th of the month & then again on the 28th.

If you are interested in reading previous posts, scroll up in this column, "Blog Archive." Click on the black arrows for a list of months, then click on the name of each month for that month's posts. You will find two essays per month, starting in February 2009.

You can also get there by clicking on the big "CARRIKER" signs. above.

The book blog, "Kitti's List," is a running log, with commentary of my past and current reading . The titles are organized primarily by the date of reading but also somewhat thematically.

On the daily blog, "The Quotidian Kit," I post -- every other day or so -- bits & bobs from both the Fortnightly "Kitti Carriker" and "Kitti's List," just to keep you informed of what is going on there. For example, I will probably re-publish this column about how to navigate the blogs on "The Quotidian" sometime in the coming week.

In addition, I occasionally feature blogs run by friends, various cross references and links that you may find of interest, announcements of community events, news about my family, old and new favorite poems, seasonal pictures and quotations, and photos of my adorable cats (sorry, can't resist!).

On the right-hand column of "The Quotidian" you will find a permanent list of the many one - liners and quotations that I have collected over the years. I hope you will find a few there that will stick in your mind as they have stuck in mine.

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About Me

Married to Gerry McCartney, Two Sons, Two Cats, Ph.D. in English
(Modern British Fiction; Univ. of Notre Dame), author of Created In Our Image: The Miniature Body of the Doll; one of six sibs, including a twin
brother.